Sir Alex Ferguson has ruled out making any signings during the January transfer window to ease Manchester United's current defensive injury crisis.

With seven senior defenders – Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Wes Brown, Jonny Evans, John O'Shea, Gary Neville and Rafael da Silva – out of action, plus the goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, it was felt the United manager would make an emergency signing, even though he had already ruled out the possibility of out-of-contract Sol Campbell arriving on a short-term basis.

However, with the majority of his players due back at some point in January, Ferguson will not be making any additions.

"That is not come on to the agenda," he told Manchester radio station Key 103. "We hope that Wes Brown will be back in a week or 10 days' time, Rio Ferdinand is improving, Gary Neville is getting there and Rafael da Silva has now started training. We are not so bad and we are not looking at signing players."

Under the circumstances, Ferguson is probably relieved that United's festive programme has been pushed back from the planned timescale.

What would have been a Boxing Day trip to Hull will take place on 27 December, with the home match against Wigan now not being played until 30 December.

They go into those games having lost two of their past three league fixtures, the most recent being Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Fulham. That result has left United four points behind the leaders Chelsea.